Refer Report
National Assembly Defense Committee Discussion on ‘How to Eradicate’
Technology is ‘innocent’… Focus on fake news and sexual crimes themselves, legal system and education must be considered
“Raise the punishment but actually improve the punishment by making it lighter”… Also emphasize preventive pre-detection
“Just as we have to keep catching pests, complete eradication (of deepfake crimes) is quite difficult. Since we cannot ban the technology itself, it is a very difficult situation where we have to distinguish between beneficial and harmful insects and carry out quarantine work.”
Professor Lee So-eun of the Department of Media Communication at Pukyung National University said this in a keynote speech at a discussion titled “How to Eradicate Deepfake Sex Crime Videos” jointly hosted by the ruling and opposition parties by the National Assembly Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the 5th. Experts unanimously agreed that a comprehensive response is needed from various aspects, including the legal system, technology, and education.
The professor mentioned false information (fake news) and sexual crimes as representative side effects of deepfake technology, and said, “The two problems are different in nature, so the responses should be different.” The professor said, “The problem is not the technology, but the sexual crimes. It is urgent to make people aware that producing pornography through deepfake is a sexual crime.” He said, “It is a problem to think about focusing only on deepfake technology or Telegram.”
Regarding the fact that the court gave suspended sentences to deepfake sex offenders because the photos were not sophisticated and the profits were not great, the professor pointed out that “we must consider the special nature of digital sex crimes, which can be easily made by anyone at a low cost and are widely spread.”
Another presenter, Professor Kim Myeong-ju of the Department of Information Security at Seoul Women’s University, also said that a multifaceted approach is needed in terms of the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) in society as a whole, as well as the creation, distribution, punishment, and victim protection of deepfake sexual exploitation materials. This is because it is not easy to control as criminals exploit deepfake technology that has been released as open source.
Professor Kim said, “A lot of international cooperation is needed,” and “Telegram recently sent an email that seemed compliant (to the Korea Communications Standards Commission, which requested the deletion of child pornography), and the biggest reason for this is probably the arrest of its CEO in France.” Professor Kim said, “We can regulate deepfake tools, and we can expand investigative techniques such as undercover investigations,” but added, “If all of these are strengthened, we also have to consider the side effects.”
Choi Jin-eung, a legislative researcher at the National Assembly Research Service, said, “The National Assembly also needs to discuss ways to provide grounds for blocking access to operators such as Telegram if they do not take corrective action after issuing several warnings.”
Regarding punishment for possession and viewing of deepfake child pornography, he was negative, saying, “The reporting function may be weakened.”
Professor Lee Hae-won of Kangwon National University Law School said, “This problem cannot be solved by simply increasing the criminal punishment. The actual punishment must be severe.” The professor said, “It is too late to delete the information after the victim reports it. We need to hold the platform more accountable so that it can detect it in advance.”
Meta Korea Vice President Huh Wook, a subsidiary of Meta Platform, which operates Facebook, Instagram, and Thread, said that the company is labeling AI products posted on its platform as “AI information” and deleting sexually exploitative content according to strict regulations.
Source: Korean